Dormant Bitcoin Whale Wallet Awakens After 13 Years

A long-dormant Bitcoin whale wallet has reactivated after 13 years and seven months of inactivity, shifting 0.00079 BTC ($56), a tiny fraction of a fortune now worth around $147 million. 

Onchain data from BitInfoCharts shows that the legacy address “1NB3ZX…” received 2,100 Bitcoin (BTC) on July 5, 2012, when BTC traded at about $6.59 per coin. At today’s prices, that stash is valued at roughly $147 million, turning an initial outlay of about $13,800 into an unrealized gain of more than 10,000x.

The move caught the eye of onchain trackers like Whale Alert and LookonChain that monitor so-called Satoshi-era addresses, a term often used for coins acquired in Bitcoin’s early years. 

BitInfoCharts shows the address was funded in a single large inflow on July 5, 2012, and then left untouched for almost 14 years.

Traders debate diamond hands vs recovered keys

Bitcoin traders are split between reverence and speculation. Some praised the HODLer’s apparent discipline for holding through multiple boom-and-bust cycles without selling, “No leverage. No day trading. No stress. Just conviction and time. The hardest strategy is also the most profitable.”

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Others argued that a more likely explanation was that the owner recently recovered their seed phrase or private key, and was sending a test transaction before cashing out a meaningful amount.

Test transactions of a few tens of dollars are common practice among long-inactive holders, who often move a tiny amount first to confirm they still control the wallet and that the destination address is correct.

Traders will now watch closely to see whether the wallet sends more of its 2,100 BTC to exchanges or fresh addresses in the coming days.

Satoshi-era whale echoes earlier $85 million move

The reawakened 2012 wallet follows another recent move by a Satoshi-era BTC holder in January. On that occasion, a separate address that first accumulated Bitcoin in 2013 transferred its entire balance of about 909 BTC (worth roughly $85 million) to a new wallet after more than 13 years of dormancy.

The whale locked in a gain of around 13,900x on coins originally bought for less than $7 each.

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